Healthy weight

We support children who are very over weight to make healthy life style choices and to achieve/work towards a healthy weight

Our healthy weight team is a nurse led service designed to support children aged four to 12 who are very over weight to make healthy life style choices and to achieve/work towards a healthy weight. We encourage a whole family approach.

We also have a role in health promotion in schools.

We offer one to one appointments with children and their parent/carer who are above the 99.6th centile for weight. The initial assessment involves an in-depth assessment of current life style such as food/drink intake and activity levels.

We educate children and their parent about portion size, food groups, activity levels, label reading, added sugar in foods and healthy choices. The children do quizzes with us so we can ascertain what they already know about healthy lifestyles.

Height, weight and BMI are recorded and plotted on centile charts. During this assessment we are able to create, with the child and parent, three achievable goals for them to work towards.

Children are followed up six weekly for three visits and then have a further follow up at three months. Children are seen for a minimum of four visits. At each follow up, height, weight and BMI are replotted and goals are adapted as appropriate. Children can be referred on to Alive and Kicking (a weight management programme in Barnet) after completion of our care to help them continue towards/maintain a healthy weight.

We also offer the primary schools in Barnet the opportunity to Host coffee mornings for parents. At these we discuss with parents about obesity risk factors, portion sizes, label reading, activity, added sugar, food groups and other healthy lifestyle issues that parents' wish to discuss.